Relatively short version: It used to be that the young & affluent were fleeing the crime & poverty stricken cities for idyllic suburbs. But wage-stagnation and the erosion of the middle-class has rendered many suburbanites poor. The suburbs lack the infrastructure to deal with so many poor people, and of course being poor means less tax revenue which hurts the already inadequate infrastructure. And since the police are a part of said wanting infrastructure, the suburbs have become easy targets from criminals.

Meanwhile, young people with means are moving back into the cities where crime rates have dropped. Sucks for those stuck in the ‘burbs. But one silver lining is that urban sprawl isn’t likely to be a big environmental issue anymore. So there’s at least that. But still, did I mention it sucks for those stuck in ‘burbs?

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:
Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.

Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
Shackling for prolonged periods.
Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.

Brian Jacob Church, a protester known as one of the “Nato Three”, was held and questioned at Homan Square in 2012 following a police raid. Officers restrained Church for the better part of a day, denying him access to an attorney, before sending him to a nearby police station to be booked and charged.

“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” Church told the Guardian on Friday. “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”
The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square - said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage - trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown.

Unlike a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked. Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.

“It’s sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place - if you can’t find a client in the system, odds are they’re there,” said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.

So when a cop needs to do some old fashioned kicking the daylights out of an uncooperative black guy or an Occupy long haired kid he rousted down on the street…he knows where to take him. What happens in the cage stays in the cage.

Dark_Falconre: #6 FemNaziBitch Just so. Chicago's unique and some of its issues have been around since before LA took off as a city. Heck, Homan Square might well have been set up as a way to prevent cases being ruined ...

Instead of moderating forums or encouraging temperate speech as a means of ‘cleaning house’, the response at Policeone has been to hide problematic speech from “the wrong people” (aka the public and defense attorneys).

On the last day before Policeone made the change, comments on the female Seattle officer message board trended heavily towards outrage that she was being disciplined for 1. Making racist comments on a public forum 2. Arresting an African American man for no apparent reason and 3. Having been caught lieing about the arrest when her car cam failed to corroborate any of her allegations.

Comments on the site overwhelmingly blamed the Seattle Chief of Police for “throwing another officer under the bus”.

Romantic Hereticre: #1 Eclectic Cyborg In my opinion, as police officers, very little. As individuals, quite a bit. The line between the two is something for legislatures, judges, and perhaps juries to decide.

I’m not saying everybody in prison is an innocent victim of The Man, obviously. But in a system where conviction rates can run 88 percent or higher, one thing is clear: you’re probably going to jail, whether you’re guilty or not. That’s just the way it is, and that’s apparently how the people want it.

It basically comes down to this country’s obsession with being tough on crime. And why not? After all, the police are never, everwrong. So why not assume everyone arrested and brought to trial are guilty? Fifth amendment “rights” only get in the way of justice. /so very sarc

Great White SnarkTime to push back. End this post 9/11 reduction of civil protections. Sunset the Patriot Act as promised. Stop handing our MRAPs like candy to babies. End the 100 mile border "zone". Prosecute police that lie to the full extent ...

America’s second most conservative city also turns out to be Texas’s second most violent. As mentioned, the rate of violent crime in hippie-infested, librul run Austin is around 40% of Lubbock’s.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports compile crime statistics on hundreds of metro areas. The latest numbers—which track the data from 2013—reveal some interesting tidbits about Texas cities. For instance: the most dangerous parts of Texas, generally, are not the largest cities, with only one of the five most populous cities to to place in the top five on the list. Also: West Texas, generally, has a higher violent crime rate than the rest of the state. And: Austin is basically a fairy tale land populated by elves and hobbits, with a violent crime rate roughly ⅓ that of Odessa, the top city on the list. Here are some more facts worth knowing:

West Texas Takes The Top Spots

Odessa’s violent crime rate of 806 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants is the highest in Texas by a fairly wide margin; Lubbock, the #2 city on the list, drops down to 658 per 100,000. Lubbock’s rate is slanted a bit more toward robbery, while Odessa has more aggravated assault cases, with a shocking 645 cases per 100,000 people.

Chez Ko PeWow. I was born in Lubbock (escaped in 1974). Toured the old neighborhood on Google Maps a couple of months ago and was horrified by the overall "post-apocalypse" vibe of the run-down place, but wasn't aware of the crime stats. ...

When I was 19, I got so drunk at a party that I passed out. I woke up in the middle of being raped. When I started to scream, he covered my mouth. I was confused, scared, a virgin, and thanks to TV and movies, I was pretty sure that he would murder me after he was done. All I could think of was how I wanted to see my little brother again, so I just lay there, with tears streaming down my face, waiting for it to end. When he finally left to get a cigarette, I snuck out to get help, hid in the bathroom with my friends, and cried. I’ll call him “R” for the rest of this article. It stands for rapist and kind of reminds of a pirate, and pirates are funny.

Look, this is a rough topic. I’m gonna take the levity where I can find it, okay?

NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.

The dramatic drop comes as Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio plan to hold an emergency summit on Tuesday with the heads of the five police unions to try to close the widening rift between cops and the administration.

The unprecedented meeting is being held at the new Police Academy in Queens at 2 p.m., sources said.

Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.

We have moved beyond insubordination into outright blackmail of the public: kiss our boots, tell us only what we want to hear and let us violate civil rights and kill people without consequence…or else.

This is an assault on democracy. Simple as that. The police threaten the peace if a public official says something they don’t like about a talk with his own son. It isn’t just entitlement gone awry…it is a rogue agency that believes itself above the law and above the elected officials who are supposedly in charge of it.

This must end, and not on their terms. If the NYPD win this fight, they will effectively become the unelected and unaccountable paramilitary leadership of the largest city in America. Nobody will be able to do or say anything against them in the future, and no politician will allowed to govern without their consent if they get their way.

We cannot afford that.

Addendum: Critics of police policy and over-criminalization (like myself) will tend to be pleased by less arrests for minor offences. That being said, the NYPD is openly hoping for anarchy that they can then blame on the mayor and then use to force him out of office (like Mayor Dinkins a generation ago). So, I am happy that fewer people are being arrested. I also recognize that police blackmail of the public peace cannot be rewarded.

lostlakehikerWell, public service and unions never were a good fit. This is just more proof of it. What else would one expect? Unions are advocates for their members, to the exclusion of every other consideration. When they're pitted against corporations ...

I’m glad Adam Everett Livix was caught. who knows how many innocent lives had been saved. Certainly this terrorist attack had it been successful would have been another sad addition to the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel says it has indicted a 30-year-old American Christian for plotting to blow up Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.

The Ministry of Justice said Tuesday that a court had indicted Adam Everett Livix in connection with the plot.

It said that Livix had cooperated with his roommate, a serving soldier in the Israeli military, to obtain 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds) of explosive material to use to blow up the unidentified Jerusalem holy places. The ministry said the plot was discovered by a police agent in October.

It said that Livix was indicted on Monday and is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

Livix’s indictment comes at a time of rising tensions in Jerusalem, mostly over a disputed holy site that is holy both to Muslims and Jews.

KerFuFFlerFrom the article: I see that Livvix is also being given a psych eval. Funny how Christians are given the benefit of the doubt that it might be a psychological problem but when Muslims plot terrorist actions they are simply ...

Crown Heights, NY - A knife-wielding man stabbed an Israeli student in the head inside a Brooklyn synagogue early Tuesday before being fatally shot by police after he refused to drop the knife, authorities said.

The man stormed into the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic world headquarters in Crown Heights at about 1:40 a.m. and attacked Levi Rosenblat, who was studying inside the synagogue, spokesman Motti Seligson said. He said there were other people inside at the time.

According to witnesses, the attacker was heard saying repeatedly “Kill the Jews,” said Chaim Landa, another spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch. Several other people immediately intervened, he said.

A witness flagged down a patrol officer, who confronted the 49-year-old man and told him to put the knife down. He initially put it down, but picked it up again, police said.

More officers responded and repeatedly ordered the man to drop the knife.

He refused and, with the knife in his hand, charged at one of the officers, who fired once, striking the man in the torso, police said.

Police said no other officers discharged their weapons.

The man was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was not immediately identified, but police said he was from New York City and had a criminal history.

The 22-year-old Rosenblat was in stable condition, officials said.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind condemned the attack.

“I’m told that the attacker came earlier that evening, too. He was stalking the scene. Thank God he didn’t inflict more harm nor do more damage to more people,” Hikind said in an email statement.

He said while a motive for the attack was not yet known, greater security was needed for Jewish institutions.

A 9-inch knife, with a 4 1/2-inch blade, was recovered at the scene, police said.

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Police are worried about radical groups that might try to harm officers after the Michael Brown grand jury announces its decision.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar says they are concerned that the Black Panthers or communist activists might blend in with peaceful protestors and try to hurt police.

Nothing like this was said during the Nevada ranching imbroglio where white, Christian “patriots” aimed assault rifles and sniper rifles at law enforcement.

But the moment black people start marching with signs, the armored personnel carriers, machine guns and attack dogs come out.

That is how it has always been done in America. Make sure that the white, protestant public knows the official truth that everything was fine until those malcontent different people started complaining and demonstrating. When heads get busted..make sure the nice, white public knows that the victims brought it on themselves…just like when poor immigrant women striking for better wages in 1920’s New York got broken bones and internal bleeding from NYPD police brutality and were mocked by the judge hearing the case.

This has worked in the coal fields of Kentucky and West Virgina. It worked in the steel plants of Philly, and the giant denim mills of North Carolina. It worked when machine guns were turned on helpless miner families in Colorado, and it worked when police beat and injured OWS in Oakland, NYC and Chapel Hill.

Make sure the white, God Fearing public that counts knows that the white, God Fearing police will protect them from the brown skinned communist masses, and anybody who gets hurt or killed had it coming.

It isn’t a dog whistle. It’s the go-to playbook for the last 150 years of corporate America, and they are doing right now in 2014.

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From Sen. Schumer's Facebook page: There are two simple reasons the comparison does not hold water. First, the federal RFRA was written narrowly to protect individuals' religious freedom from government interference unless the government or state had a compelling interest. ...

UPDATE MARCH 30: NEW TIME FOR LIVE STREAM - 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PDT NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project will be flying a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space from the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on ...

What's this? Another article on Cracked about how incorrigibly tribal-minded us homo sapiens are? Well, yes. But the proverbial devil is in the proverbial details. Proverbially. It's still worth reading. That's what I'm getting at. Everyone is talking about Scientology ...

China attacks the biggest code repository in the world. After battling a distributed denial of service attack for four days, GitHub on Monday was able to restore normal service levels. The primary target of the assault is greatfire.org, which is ...

An American woman--presumably not Muslim, though she doesn't say one way or the other--married to a Libyan man is taken aback when her 9-year-old daughter suddenly wants to start wearing hijab. This is the story of how conflicted she felt ...

NEW YORK, March 27 (Reuters) - Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, ...

By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare law that took aim at a bureaucratic board labeled by some Republicans as a ...

Depending on the outcome of a hearing scheduled for Monday, a 33-year-old Indiana woman could face up to 70 years in prison for what she says was a miscarriage. Reproductive rights advocates say her case is a disturbing example ...

The number of things getting plugged into the "Internet of Things" has already reached the point of satire. But there's a new, extremely low power technology that's being prepared for market that could put computing power and network access ...

Are conservatives anti-science? Spoiler: Conservatives aren't anti-science or pro-science. But, they are pro-common-sense. And once more scientists adopt common sense approach to science, they'll find that they have the support of conservative politicians - the people whose job it is ...

cracked.com Once the fighting started, a lot of people died, well over a million on our side alone. For the war to continue, a constant stream of new fighters had to join up, and they didn't have the benefit of ...

Here is an interesting article on one of Tail Gunner Joe's sick witch hunts that has, unfortunately, been forgotten. I try not to feel schadenfreude of the fate of McCarthy's side kick, Ray Cohn, but I never succeed.

About the Graphic How should a woman try to get ahead in a male-dominated workplace? Perhaps the answer lies less on women "manning up" and more in how businesses value their employees. Many women confront this tension as they ...

If we accept the idea of Orthopraxy over Orthodoxy, then what does evangelism look like? What is the Witness of those who try to follow the Way of Christ Jesus? To evangelize is to spread the good news that we ...

A short column in The Nation that is a must read. The primary difference between liberalism and conservatism, at least in theory, is that the latter is an ideology and the former isn't. Conservatism, as Milton Friedman argued, posits that ...

Blow off Snowden all you like, but what was revealed to be true is still true. The NSA lacks oversight with power. FISA is already too much and now they casually exceed even that generous provision. The world first learned ...

This is a powerful admission of culpability and I applaud his courage in making it. It really should be read in its entirety. Glenn Ford should be completely compensated to every extent possible because of the flaws of a system ...

Sarah Vine of the DM gets it wrong: SARAH VINE: Teaching 11-year-olds about rape is a form of child abuse The problem with this country, I've come to realise, is that it treats adults like children and children like adults. ...